Renaissance of the Lizardmen
by atheistbasementdragon
Summary: Zaryusu trained in the Library of Ashurbanipal alongside Neia Baraja, and the wealth of knowledge left its mark, how will the lizardmen of a simple swamp village, respond to a wealth of new ideas brought from the god that took away their independence? (One shot story, not to be continued)


Zaryusu never looked at his village the same way again. His time training with Neia and the other humans in the frozen moment had been remarkable, his warriors had reached heights of skill they had never dreamed achievable, and so had he if the truth be known. But something else happened. Something quite unexpected that he'd never imagined.

He thought back to the days when he had left his village, he'd left because he thought things couldn't go on as they had been, he'd sought knowledge and brought it back, and developed the fish farm to provide for his people. This...experience, spending so long in the Library of Ashurbanipal, was something else entirely. When he walked out of it for the final time in the period he had spent training with the humans, he had spent the weeks before that going through books on engineering and art, and he learned about 'pumps' and 'dams' and the ways people had controlled their environment through artificial means without any magic. Why they used no magic, he had no idea, but what mattered was that these were things ANYONE could do, all they needed was the knowledge. He had gone through books of art that showed something called 'photos' which showed projects that only gods could have accomplished, yet when brought to the Sorcerer King, he had insisted that it had been done...by humans...without magic.

When he returned to his village, his proud, noble village, he saw what it could be, if they only had knowledge. On the last day, the Sorcerer King had said, 'You have worked hard for me to prepare my servants for a task that may claim their lives, as you have given me loyalty, so my loyalty goes in return to you, and you may ask one boon of me as a reward, and if it is within reason, I will grant it.'

Zaryusu, from his humble position with bended knee before the king who defeated his people, but also enriched them, Zaryusu said, 'Lord, you remember the thing I asked of you when I returned from beyond this life?'

'I do,' Ainz said, 'but for those not present, so they know you do not ask for to much please repeat it.'

'I asked for prosperity for the lizardmen.' Zaryusu said, his heart pounding in his chest.

'Have I kept my promise?' The Sorcerer King asked.

'Many times over, my King. Your rule has brought plenty in place of want, hope instead of fear, we have seen no hostilities from the frogmen, no one has been lost to monsters, and our young grow healthy and in numbers we never dreamed possible.' Zaryusu said firmly, 'But I have learned something of my own in my time here, something I never imagined. I have seen the value of learning, not only what one needs in the immediate, but for the sake of itself, in your library there are countless tomes of knowledge I could never express or even describe, even scratching the surface of it, has opened my eyes to the possibilities and potential we have yet to even begin to tap.'

'So you wish access to the library for your people?' Ainz asked.

'I do, my lord.' Zaryusu said.

'Done then, however the magical tomes are off limits except to those who attend a school for magic first. All else, is yours to reach for, but the books remain there, they do not leave Nazarick.' Ainz said.

Zaryusu practically wept for joy as he expressed his gratitude, and he stepped through the portal back to his home.

Now, looking at his village, he considered how to improve his home.

He went to Crusch Lulu and embraced his young boy, and when he told her of all he had seen, she could scarcely believe it.

'But...my mate...' she began, 'what does all this mean for us?'

'It means that our god has chosen to grant our species a future, a bright future, and to be the very first to see it, because we have come to it first, we will be able to apply much of it before all others, we will be the first to receive the depths of his majesty's gift of greater prosperity.'

'Where will you begin?' She asked.

He pulled a drawing out of his pack. 'I drew this from the original and copied the page exactly. This is how a people called the 'Aztecs' created new land on which they could build.' He handed her the drawing. 'They bound wood together very tightly, and then filled the space in with earth, as they filled it, they packed it tight, doing many of these next to each other, and then they would build on top of them, in this way they created space for a massive city of stone where there wasn't one before!' He pulled out another drawing and handed it to her, she looked it over, 'This is called a 'pump' it draws water from out of a space much faster and easier than wells and buckets, we could build all the land we need, and the earth we take from elsewhere, can then be filled in to create new lakes by pumping out the water, thus allowing us to expand!' His jaw fell open in an excited laugh and her eyes went wide.

'What tier magic is this...?' She asked.

'NONE!' He shouted excitedly, mere humans, mortals like us, could do this entirely without using any magic, all we need is the knowledge of how to do it and the hands to put to work!

'But...why?' She asked.

'We're growing my love, our children are not dying of sickness anymore, we're not worried about growing hungry, I can make new fish farms with this knowledge, and we can expand our livable space so that all our young will have a chance at growing up healthy and strong. And this is just a fragment of what he has let me see!' He took out another paper and showed her, 'This is called a 'watermill' the water pushes this wheel around, and the wheel can move other things without us having to do the work, according to the book, it was used for any number of repetitive tasks, and the one we could best use it for is lumber, with more wood, we can make more homes, we could lay more paths...the wealth of knowledge in that realm of gods can give us better lives for countless generations!'

Crusch was sold, and if she was on board, the rest wouldn't be far behind, and the next few months saw a wealth of revolutionary activity take place in the lizardman village. Cocytus advised them closely, vetted their projects, sought the assistance of his smarter counterparts like Demiurge, and using trial and error while being supported from the books of Nazarick, they began to see progress, the area the village took up tripled in size, land that was unsuitable for building was altered, first by using magic to create a solid surface beneath the soft swampy area, then the trees were cut, and they used that for a combination of watermill construction, which let them cut wood, which they used to create the stakes they'd need, and they bound vines and tree fibers into ropes to create the area they wanted to fill, and then they emptied the water out of that space, and filled it in with earth taken from elsewhere in brigades by buckets. Skeleton labor was brought in to assist with the simpler tasks, and soon there was land where there had been none.

It had been a momentous day for Zaryusu and the lizardman tribe, before they'd even built atop it, the doubters were silenced as the impossible now seemed within reach, a pump was produced within the forges of Nazarick by the hands of the dwarves, and it was used to pump excess into a new space, and Zaryusu deposited several fish eggs into the new 'lake', along with the plants that attracted the insects that the fish liked. The lake was named 'Ainz Lake' at Cocytus's suggestion, and the suggestion was met with much acclaim. The remaining wood was used to build new homes.

In the years that followed, it became a custom for the children of the lizardman village to visit Nazarick and spend a day out of every week there, until Ainz suggested building their own library, and he selected books on various subjects which were stored there, he explained that the purpose of a library is to grant common access to knowledge and texts for all, and when presented with this suggestion, the lizardmen were quick to adopt it. The Library idea in time became a school, and Nazarick a field trip to the home of the founder of all knowledge, and the worship of Ainz, not as the god of death, but as the god of wisdom, knowledge, and prosperity, became the custom of the lizardmen.

The village became a town, and in time the town became a city, the first and only lizardman city in the world, and the area surrounding the city contained numerous villages that supported it, and Ainz introduced the concept of 'green living' providing texts on how to manage the balance of nature, the needs of all life, not just their lives, thinking as he did so, that Blue Planet would have approved of this preventative measure in protecting the new world. Lizardmen became some of the most learned people in the new world, few at first, but then numbers of them traveled to the corners of the continent, becoming valued advisors instead of rare and unusual curiosities.

Zaryusu and Crusch had lead the charge for the lizardman future, and supported by Ainz Ooal Gown, they lived to see their people grow leaps and bounds beyond the swamp muck and ignorance that they began with the day they defied what they had thought of then as the god of death. Their children in turn followed their parents examples, and became scholars in their own right, one of magic, one of engineering, and they, under the guidance of Mare and Demiurge, combined their skills to create magic engineering, matching the manipulation of land to optimal engineering considerations for buildings that were both beautiful and functional.

Centuries later, the value of knowledge remained a key part of lizardman culture, and only Ainz remembered that it began with a lizardman who had come to understand that all he really needed, was knowledge and the will to apply it, learned from a book in the Library of Ashurbanipal.

 **AN: OK so this was a little one shot hypothetical I thought I'd throw out there, I'm kind of an eternal student of everything, and one thing I couldn't help but notice was that despite all the knowledge available, its rather limited in how its used, none of the characters ever seem to really invent or respond to invention with imitation, awe is fine, but where are those who try to do the same? Zaryusu was a remarkable character, he recognized the need for change, he recognized the need to grow and find knowledge his village lacked, so it stands to reason that his time in the library as depicted in 'Training in Time' would lead to a revolution at home when he returned permanently...and yeah...I wanted to draw on some actual history to play with it in the new world. The Aztecs really did create land that way for example. :) I thought I'd make a longer piece at first, but I ended up deciding to do a one shot just to show something unique happening in the world, that didn't have to be tied directly to everything else, just an unintended consequence of exposing a curious mind to new possibilities.**

 **Thanks for reading, hope you liked it, reviews welcome, but again...this is one I probably won't revisit. :)**


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